Coinbase National Trust Charter Takes Effect on November 6, Enabling Federal Digital Asset Custody Services
Key Facts
Coinbase National Trust Company’s charter took effect on November 6, 2026, according to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s application record, moving the company’s application from approval to an effective operating charter. The office recorded approval of the application on April 2, 2026, months before the recorded effective date. The record classifies the application as a new national bank charter of the trust bank type, with the proposed name Coinbase National Trust Company and proposed charter number 25390. The development comes within the federally supervised custody and payment services enabled by the preliminary approval. Coinbase said the approval “puts more of our business behind this commitment,” referring to its commitment to clear rules and strong oversight.
The office’s documents define a trust scope for the entity, not a full-service commercial banking business. In its April approval decision, the OCC authorized the company to exercise trust powers and said the bank would provide cryptocurrency custody in a fiduciary capacity. The decision also required operations to be limited to the activities of a trust company and related activities, as set out in the submitted business plan. CoinDesk described the April approval as permitting federally regulated custody and payment services, while excluding the full-service bank model that takes deposits and makes loans. Coinbase said when it announced the preliminary approval that it “is not becoming a commercial bank” and would not accept retail deposits.
The charter’s limits also include specific provisions on deposits and stablecoins. The OCC decision said the bank would not be an insured depository institution, meaning the charter does not grant it federal deposit insurance. The office also said the entity does not propose to issue stablecoins, and that issuance questions raised by one commenter were unrelated to its application. This means the announced decision’s scope centers on fiduciary custody and related activities, not operating a retail bank or creating a stablecoin. The decision, in turn, allowed custody clients to access services from Coinbase subsidiaries, including staking, prime brokerage and prime financing.
The regulatory process dates back to the preliminary approval decision, in which the OCC reviewed objections to the application and concluded that the proposed activities were permissible for a national trust bank. Under the decision, the bank will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Coinbase Global. The office lists the proposed headquarters address as One Madison Avenue in New York. Within this framework, the charter allows the custody entity to operate under the trust powers set by the regulator and the business plan, while services connected to subsidiaries remain part of the offering described in the decision. Coinbase’s charter took effect after the OCC record listed Ripple National Trust Bank’s charter as effective on October 26, 2026, as part of a series of national charters for digital asset companies.
The legal path for such charters remains contested. CoinDesk reported that the Independent Community Bankers of America sued the OCC, alleging that granting trust charters to cryptocurrency companies exceeds the office’s authority. Reuters said the association filed the lawsuit on October 2, 2026, challenging the regulator’s authority to grant limited-purpose bank charters to companies in the sector. This places Coinbase’s charter taking effect within a broader debate over the limits of the OCC’s authority over these types of entities. The effective-date record itself provided no details on an operational transition schedule for custody services.
In trading, Coinbase shares closed at $134.76 on November 6, 2026, compared with a close of $136.82 in the previous session, according to EL7 data. The closing price shows the stock’s movement in the session when the charter took effect, while the available evidence does not provide a documented intraday trading range. An earlier regulatory development for the company was its platform receiving CFTC approval to expand derivatives services in September 2026. That earlier approval and the new OCC charter place Coinbase’s U.S. regulatory expansion in the context of separate developments involving derivatives markets and custody services. The next step reflected in the evidence is the continuation of the bankers’ association’s legal challenge to the OCC’s authority to grant these charters.